Indian forests provide a multitude of services to vast populations. Common human activities including livestock grazing, fuelwood extraction and burning have the potential to impact forest ecosystem structure and function. The effects of these activities on vegetation, ecology and soil properties were investigated in Bandipur National Park (BNP) in southern India. Data were collected from 200 s...

This study was conducted to: (1) test the utility of a new and rapid analytical method, pyrolysis molecular beam mass spectrometry (py-MBMS), for the measurement and characterization of carbon in forest soils, and (2) examine the effects of natural disturbance on soil carbon dynamics. An additional objective was to test the ability of py-MBMS to distinguish recent from more stable humic substan...

Madagascar is well-known for the exceptional biodiversity of its macro-flora and fauna, but the biodiversity of Malagasy microbial communities remains relatively unexplored. Understanding patterns of bacterial diversity in soil and their correlations with above-ground botanical diversity could influence conservation planning as well as sampling strategies to maximize access to bacterially deriv...

Treefall gaps are the major source of disturbance in most tropical forests. The frequency and size of these gaps have important implications for forest ecosystem processes as they can influence the functional trait distribution of tree communities, stand-level aboveground biomass and productivity. However, we still know little about the relative importance of environmental drivers of gap distur...

Boreal forests occupy nearly one fifth of the terrestrial land surface and are recognised as globally important regulators of carbon (C) cycling and greenhouse gas emissions. Carbon sequestration processes in these forests include assimilation of CO2 into biomass and subsequently into soil organic matter, and soil microbial oxidation of methane (CH4). In this study we explored how ecosystem ret...

Soil microorganisms are important for climate regulation as well as for plant nutrition. In agricultural soils the microorganisms are affected by management choices, like which type of tillage that is used. Moldboard plowing, the most common tillage practice, increases mineralization which leads to soil organic carbon (SOC) loss, and may thus reduce soil quality. Conservation tillage practices ...

Water is one of the most critical resources derived from natural systems. While it has long been recognized that forest disturbances like fire influence watershed streamflow characteristics, individual studies have reported conflicting results with some showing streamflow increases postdisturbance and others decreases, while other watersheds are insensitive to even large disturbance events. Cha...

Soil quality appears to be an ideal indicator of sustainable land management. Soil is the foundation for nearly all land uses. Soil quality, by definition, reflects the capacity to sustain plant and animal productivity, maintain or enhance water and air quality, and promote plant and animal health. By reflecting the basic capacity of the soil to function, it integrates across many potential use...

a r t i c l e i n f o In soil-mantled landscapes, downslope sediment transport occurs via disturbance-driven processes that vary with climate and vegetation change. To help constrain the long-term (≫10 yr) pattern and rate of soil mixing and transport in forests, we analyzed the distribution of tephra grains in soil along a hillslope transect in the Blue Mountains, SE Washington. Deposited with...